Vegetarians

Certain groups of kids are more likely to exclude meat than others -- and teens top the list. In a 2009 poll by the Vegetarian Resource Group, an advocacy organization, for example, 11% of girls ages 13 to 15 said they were vegetarian. A 2001 survey of more than 4,700 middle school and high school students in Minneapolis-St. Paul found that the typical young vegetarian was a nonblack female who was self-conscious about her weight. When the newly declared vegetarian is a teenager, there may be a special reason to pay attention and perhaps reason to worry, says nutritionist and epidemiologist Dianne Neumark-Sztainer of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Anna Thomas, a few canvas bags hanging on one arm, wanders the rows of the Ventura farmers market just eight hours before her guests are to sit around the table in the soaring great room of her home in Ojai. She chooses yellow onions and prune plums, leeks and walnuts as an ocean breeze cools the shoppers on one of the hottest days of the season. Though she's hardly a familiar name today, Thomas is the one who in the early 1970s lured many a hungry idealist rebelling against a meat-and-potatoes childhood into the kitchen with "The Vegetarian Epicure," a seminal book that came out of nowhere to sell more than 1 million copies.

Bo De Tinh Tam Chay is so serene it can transport you to a meditative state. The sound of trickling water flows through the dining room, a peaceful backing-track that blocks out the occasional clangs and whirs that erupt from the kitchen. A forest of fake bamboo surrounds the dining area, and Buddhist statues are placed throughout the room The Westminster restaurant is not reserved about its Buddhism (the restaurant's name derived from the sacred Bodhi tree, and Buddhist brochures and texts are strategically stationed near the doors)

Diva Dompe and Amanda Brown pad barefoot around Dompe's rickety house in the sun-soaked hills of Echo Park, preparing a "cheesy" vegan sauce of cashews, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice to mix with spiraled zucchini noodles. Once the concoction is topped with chopped walnuts and put in a dehydrator for 20 minutes, the women will cheekily refer to it as "baked macaroni and cheese." It's a popular dish among fans of their raw food and vegan catering company Crops and Rawbers.

A vegetarian restaurant on the Mendocino coast has begun serving a six-course "sea vegetable dinner," featuring sea palm, nori, dulse and wakame -- different forms of seaweed. Though they're not your typical fare in the U.S., fresh sea vegetables are eaten all over the world by those who live close to the source. Asian cuisines feature the most seaweed, but it's also found on the menu in Scandinavia, Scotland and Peru. In Nova Scotia, they dine on sea parsley, or dulse; in northeast Siberia they eat kelp harvested from the Bering Sea. It's a bit of a misnomer to call them vegetables -- seaweeds are algae, and most are not considered members of the plant kingdom.

Five years ago I made the most difficult, painful decision of my life. I converted from a carnivore to a vegetarian. A bit of back story. I moved to L.A. in 1992 after growing up in Nebraska, where beef is sacrosanct. Enough Nebraskans are consumed with meat that gristle is classified as a vegetable. They eat pork rinds for dessert. To succumb to "mad cow" disease is considered a natural death. There's a steakhouse in Omaha that serves a 32-ounce noontime T-Bone.

FIVE years ago I made the most difficult, painful decision of my life. I converted from a carnivore to a vegetarian. A bit of back story. I moved to L.A. in 1992 after growing up in Nebraska, where beef is sacrosanct. Enough Nebraskans are consumed with meat that gristle is classified as a vegetable. They eat pork rinds for dessert. To succumb to "mad cow" disease is considered a natural death. There's a steakhouse in Omaha that serves a 32-ounce noontime T-Bone. In pre-meal rituals, restaurant diners swallow enormous cheese- and lard-laden bovine hunks half their body weight and call them "appetizers.

The indie-rock band Viva K says that opening Elf Cafe -- a tiny Echo Park vegetarian restaurant specializing in organic Eastern Mediterranean cuisine -- was a lot like making a record. "Being in a band can be a very political experience, when you have things to say to the world," says bassist/head chef Scott Zwiezen. "We're all vegetarians and we have strong feelings about cruelty to animals. Elf was a way to make a statement in a very tactile sense."

October is World Vegetarian Month so throw down your steak knives and embrace your inner tree-hugger at these animal-loving eateries. -- What better place than Sunset Junction for a trendy vegan eatery with a suspiciously hip staff? That this is the first tofu scrambling, tempeh bacon-serving joint to successfully open on this granddaddy of faddy strips actually blows the mind. And without air conditioning, it's as earthy as can be. 3818 W. Sunset Blvd. (323) 953-0611.